The bottom line from experts at a major fertility conference in London last week: A possible sperm crisis is afoot. Shirley Wang explains on Lunch Break. Photo: Science Source/Photo Researchers Inc.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... welcome back lights Peckham Wendy downs but today's young man less ... volatile than their fathers experts say there is a potential crisis like Whitney and sperm counts to be seen for more a decade or more we of Wall Street Journal Health reporter ... Shelly long joined us right now from London with the de tails so surely ... there several studies from your PC out from European nations they raise some red flags about sperm counts for a ... walk us through the headlines of these findings ... Shorenstein the theory of controversy and ... studies from about seven different European nations had ... shown different again ... if ... I'm trends where it ... had ... men's sperm count ... decrease over time ... and there's a lot as I'm ... ChristopherM about you know will how good the studies are in that sort of thing ... and not all of them show the same trend that there does seem to be a and at least some consistency in terms of the decrease ... in sperm count overall ... in the last at ten fifteen even twenty years ... so the question of ... what is this mean and why is that important ... and experts say that its import of course for a fertility perspective if they'd actually it impacts ... men and couples may desire to have children ... but also it should be ... on a porn for public health purposes to know if this is happening because ... the same sorts of environmental factors that might ... in impacts reproductive health may also be that thinking that after a body as well as above both very good points I surely I'd you know that that many to question it comes to mind is is widening their environmental reasons that this could be happening ... other health genetic factors that could be contributing to the store counts ... right ... so there definitely are both of those factors in terms of environmental ... aired on top of things like get exposed to pesticides and ... Ann Dixon disrupters like EPA I'm ... and I have those kinds of things but also things like what happens ... in utero so there's actually a data link to that in ... between maternal smoking ... and lower sperm count so it seems to suggest that ... you know what your ... mother may have done that may actually impact the out of a generation later ... so ill that the question in a bet that sell is a question you know what you do about it ... but experts say it's really another another reason why I mention strip out the healthiest pregnancy they can because the man on the facts to be people from the moment that also ... indicates reproductive health generations later having a bigger plan you mentioned BP a moment ago that being a substances found a lot and plastic bottles passenger eking waterfalls ... on people been concerned about of late now let's talk about what is ... considered normal in terms of spur sperm count when it comes to actually achieving reproduction ... great ... so as as telling everybody knows men on film and makes firm throughout ... their lives and generally on anything Smith ... and sixty million sperm per milliliter cotton and anti air ... is considered normal hence ... any think anything about forty eight million above should have ... additional problem in terms of conception but when you start getting ... below that number ... and then people start running into some fertility which if the idea that takes more than a year to conceive ... Orix infertility El Rey ... among other reasons why this ... this I suppose that trend has been such a controversy is that it's really hard to know ... which meant the study so if you're talking about men showing up in fertility clinics the men and may not be representative ... of the year the population ... and and so and so forth but the question of course is ... from that from a big picture perspective if men are actually ... um less fertile than their fathers ... I didn't actually impacting the ability to have children in at least in some cases ... the answer is yes one study showed that ... to me like one in five young men now adding ... any European nation that are having trouble in the five per dollar in Pearl category ... writes surely long thanks for being with this more D tells on that and the studies in the Pursell Journal section tomorrow thanks so much ...